The annual art fair known as Papier is an opportunity to discover how more than 300 artists from across Canada use paper to create art — there are drawings, photographs, digital images, collages and even sculptures made of paper.

Thirty-eight galleries are participating in Papier 16 April 22-24 in Hangar 16 on the Quai d’horlage in the Old Port. Sixteen of the galleries are from outside Montreal.

Admission to Papier is free. So are the tours and six talks, one on the subject of digital collages.

The event is organized by the Contemporary Art Galleries Association, a Montreal-based group of galleries with members across Canada and a mandate to encourage the collecting of art by presenting art that is affordable — starting at $500.

With so much art to see, there will be much to discover. The discovery could be the Calgary gallery showing work by a Montreal artist it represents, or the Winnipeg gallery presenting collages by an artist most people know only as a film director.

Trépanier Baer Gallery in Calgary is showing collages by Luanne Martineau, who teaches drawing and painting at Concordia.

From Guy Maddin’s Storyboard 1: The Winnipeg filmmaker uses collages of stills from different movies to create fictional narratives.

Guy Maddin is a well known Winnipeg filmmaker, but his art will be a discovery. That city’s Lisa Kehler Art + Projects is presenting Maddin’s storyboard collages of stills from different movies that he makes into fictional narratives.

“It’s a timely opportunity to introduce Maddin’s film fans to his sensual, surreal collage work,” said Lisa Kehler, owner of the Winnipeg gallery. “While they are fictional storyboards, they are fascinating references to his more familiar creative outlet.”

Maddin’s recent film, The Forbidden Room, was made at the Phi Centre and features actress Karine Vanasse, who is also Papier 16’s spokesperson.

Other discoveries at Papier could include artists who are relatively unknown here, but have national reputations.

Trépanier Baer is also showing ink drawings by Chris Cran, paintings by Ryan Slugget, drawings by Vikky Alexander and photographs by IAIN BAXTER&, who legally changed his name to include the ampersand to denote the inclusiveness of his work.

Both Martineau and Alexander, a Vancouver artist, have works in the National Gallery of Canada and Cran is scheduled to open a solo show there May 20. Slugget, who transforms the ordinary into an opportunity to appreciate the deep possibilities of every moment, is a Calgary artist whose work was seen at the Montreal Bienniale in 2007.

BAXTER& has been a fixture on the conceptual art scene since he co-founded the N.E. Thing Co., a Vancouver artist-run centre in 1967. He uses the camera as a tool to discover the extraordinary nature of ordinary things, said gallery administrator Judy Ciccaglione in an interview.

He has worked with Polaroid cameras that made images as large as 20 x 24 inches. But the technical aspects of photography — like lighting and composition — is subservient to the potential to see things with an open mind, she said.

“First, fall in love with a piece, then get answers to questions like: is it good art, is it overpriced?” Blais said in an interview. “To be a collector you don’t need 100 works — just one and the desire to get another.”

AT A GLANCE

Paper 16 opens April 22 and continues through April 24 at Hangar 16 on the Quai d’horlage in the Old Port. For more information, go to papiermontreal.com.

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Symbolic value of ritual

Hakapik is an exhibition of black and white photographs, a 13-minute film and a 168-page book about the seal hunt by a photographer who got access to his subject only by becoming a seal hunter himself.

Yoanis Menge documented his 20 hunting trips over four years off Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Newfoundland and Nunavut.

Menge said he is keenly aware of the controversy aroused by the hunt, but focused instead “on representing the actions involved and the symbolic value of the ritual to celebrate the nobility of this custom that is so strongly enshrined in tradition.”

Defining modernity in our era

The Museum of Fine Arts presents Partners in Design, an exhibition of works that trace the evolution of modern design from the Bauhaus in 1920s Germany to the major design exhibitions presented by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the 1930s.

The exhibitions resulted from the friendship between Alfred Barr, the first director of the MoMA, and Philip Johnson, first curator of the museum’s architecture department, who “were behind the movement that defined modernity in our era,” the MMFA says.

Physiology and feelings

As Julie Trudel has developed scientific and experimental processes to discover the physiological effects of colours and their application, her work has become more and more complex. But her cerebral approach isn’t contained — it infects the emotions, too.

Joan Jonas retrospective

A retrospective of a half-century of work by American multimedia artist Joan Jonas opens at DHC/ART.

The retrospective ranges from early video performances to the multimedia installation and performance They Came to Us without a Word, which was presented in the U.S. pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale.

On April 26, Jonas and curator Barbara Clausen will be at the nearby Phi Centre to discuss the exhibition.

Joan Jonas: From Away opens April 28 and continues to Sept. 18 at the DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art, 461 and 465 St-Jean St. Details: dhc-art.org.

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Printed Art Festival

The Montreal Printed Art Festival celebrates the art of printmaking, with 10 days of art exhibitions, printmaking workshops, conferences and an art fair.

The festival is the result of a collaboration between six organizations, including two printmaking centres, Arprim centre d’essai en art imprimé and Atelier Circulaire. Its theme is “pushing the limits of printmaking.”

The Montreal Printed Art Festival opens April 28 and continues to May 7 at 5445 de Gaspé Ave., Suite 105. Details: faimtl.ca.

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Contemporary Native Art Biennial

The third edition of the Contemporary Native Art Biennial opens at Art Mûr, the Canadian Guild of Crafts and the Stewart Hall Art Gallery in Pointe-Claire.

Michael Patten, the event’s curator, said about 60 artists are participating in the event, which includes an exhibition by Nadia Myre that is already open at the McCord Museum.

For more information about Culture Shift: Contemporary Native Art Biennial, go to artmur.com.

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March 2010: Phyllis Lambert, founding director emeritus of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, is being honoured by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Robert Stern, a member of the selection jury, said that “under Lambert’s leadership, the CCA has amassed an incomparable library and staggering archive of drawings, and has mounted important public programs that have done much to rescue the profession of architecture from inertia and amnesia.”

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